Applicant's Dutch patent NL-C-2 002 580, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference, relates to a deskinner for poultry thighs. NL-C-2 002 580 mentions on its page 6, lines 15-30 with reference to FIGS. 1A through 1E as attached to this description, that: the discharge 3 of the deskinner comprises a conveyor line 1 that is provided with carriers 2 for receiving therein the deskinned thighs. Once the deskinned thighs are in the carriers 2 of the conveyor line 1, the deskinned thighs may be conveyed to a further processing device, for instance for deboning the thighs and harvesting the meat from said thighs. To this end the conveyor line 1 is driven synchronously with the preceding conveyor line 5, which latter conveyor line 5 represents the infeed for the conveyor line.
Although the apparatus according to NL-C-2 002 580 generally speaking operates satisfactorily, one object of the present invention is to increase the reliability at which the poultry parts are received in the carriers. It is a further object of the invention to increase the reliability in the deboning operation.
It is remarked that U.S. Pat. No. 5,277,649 discloses a deboner for poultry parts with a series of carriers, each single carrier equipped for receiving a single poultry part while the poultry parts are moving in their conveying direction, and wherein each of the carriers is embodied with two movable arms with an open position and a closed position. In the open position the carrier ensures that the poultry part may be reliably received therein. In the closed position, however, the poultry part is fixed in position by holding the poultry part at only one place, which is detrimental for the accurate positioning of the poultry part, particularly during deboning. A device of method that can improve over this disclosure would be useful.